Hi everyone. I’m Cinder Bloc. I joined Lemmy very recently, and this was the first community I went looking for. Did some digging and realized that the creator had abandoned the community and deleted their account. I requested to take over, and here we are.

So, for now, bear with me a little as I get a handle on how things work.

Otherwise, let’s get this thing going and active, and post that Intel.

TLDR;

Trump has issued a National Security Directive ( way different than an Executive Order ) instructing all Federal law enforcement and most local law enforcement to proactively go after MAGA's enemies.

NSPM-7 directs a new national strategy to “disrupt” any individual or groups “that foment political violence,” including “before they result in violent political acts.”

This week, Hegseth will give the same orders to the entire US military.

End TLDR;

Potentially every police force in America will carry out Trump's orders

NSPM-7 is fundamentally a law enforcement directive, and it dispenses with the complications of using the active duty military or the National Guard in pursuit of political violence. It directs the Department of Justice to focus the FBI’s approximately 200 Joint Terrorism Task Forces (JTTFs) to the new mission. The FBI network of task forces comprises over 4,000 members—including FBI personnel and task force officers (or TFOs) from more than 500 state and local agencies and 50 federal agencies, including special agents, police officers, intelligence analysts and surveillance technicians. First established in New York City in 1980 to systematize FBI and NYPD cooperation, today there are task forces around the country, including at least one in each of the FBI’s 55 field offices.

Regarding this week's gathering of admirals and generals:

"And now, as I’ve been warning you, the picture is no longer blurry — it’s coming into sharp focus. My sources are telling me that this sudden push to gather generals, hold secret meetings, and tighten loyalty tests is not random at all. It’s part of laying out the next phase of the blueprint, the machinery of Project 2025. This is the plan — to turn ICE, the military, and every federal lever of power into Trump’s personal police force, just like Putin and other dictators do,"[Lev Parnas] wrote Saturday.

My own analysis:

Even if some states resist, Republican states will not. The publicity around NPSM-7 will rope in even law enforcement organizations not associated with a JTTF. Within departments which somehow choose not to follow the president's orders, there will be LEOs who against the President's enemies harass, detain, arrest under pre-textual indicators, and report individuals and organizations to feds.

NSPM-7 is why the Secretary of Defense has called all admirals and generals to Quantico. They'll be given marching orders and an opportunity to retire or reassigned. Once the opponents are cleared out, the entire military will be after us. Nothing in the world is scarier than the US Armed Forces.

Sources:

• Trump’s NSPM-7 Labels Common Beliefs As Terrorism “Indicators”
• Countering Domestic Terrorism and Organized Political Violence
• 'Could've been an email': Hegseth mocked as details emerge on 'short speech' to top brass

I I'll have to drive an hr and a half each way to get it. He says it's all been properly stored and no issues. Expires 2034. Should I get it.

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.world/post/31213948

cross-posted from: https://lemm.ee/post/64675314

Looks like this got deleted from the original community where I posted it, so re-posting what I can remember here.

This screenshot is from a post I made on my city's subreddit.

Monday the Washington Post revealed my city was using a first of its kind mass surveillance and facial recognition software that allows police to track individuals added to a watchlist via cameras installed around the city.

The ACLU is saying it is "the stuff of authoritarian surveillance states, and has no place in American policing.”

“Until now, no American police department has been willing to risk the massive public blowback from using such a brazen face recognition surveillance system,” said Nathan Freed Wessler, deputy director of ACLU’s Speech, Privacy, and Technology Project. “By adopting this system–in secret, without safeguards, and at tremendous threat to our privacy and security–the City of New Orleans has crossed a thick red line.

The NOPD has stopped using it since WaPo began investigating because it violated a city ordinance, but federal agents (ICE) and state police are still using the real time tracking app.

I realized after reading an Axios article about it on Wednesday that the ordinance was created after the mayor, suddenly asked the city to lift a blanket ban on the technology and other controversial predictive policing policies.

The city's mayor has been facing federal charges regarding a scandal for several years and is currently just running out the clock on her last term as mayor. She has also been accused of other corruption such as accepting gifts as bribes in the past

The ban on predictive policing policies was originally created following the end of a secret partnership between Palantir and the city of New Orleans from ~2012-2018.

Months after the city first abandoned it's contract with Palantir, Mayor Cantrell seemed to be looking for loopholes that would allow her to continue using controversial predictive policing

I have tried to avoid pile-on critique of the mayor, and I actually voted her the first time she ran. However, one of the most common questions people in my city ask, is "how has she not been arrested?" I want to stress this is my own speculation, but given the details that are emerging now, I do wonder if these charges may have been related to why she so willingly turned over the city's privacy to the federal government in 2022?

The proposed ordinance, if passed, would largely reverse the council’s blanket bans on the use facial recognition and characteristic tracking software, which is similar to facial recognition but for identifying race, gender, outfits, vehicles, walking gait and other attributes. One provision also appears to walk back the city’s ban on predictive policing and cell-site simulators — which intercept and spy on cell phone calls — to locate people suspected of certain serious crimes.

That provision could, for the first time, give the city explicit permission to use a whole host of surveillance technology in certain circumstances, including voice recognition, x-ray vans, “through the wall radar,” social media monitoring software, “tools used to gain unauthorized access to a computer,” and more.

Lastly the proposal would allow the city to use “social media or communications software or applications for the purpose of communicating with the public, provided such use does not include the affirmative use of any face surveillance.” The Lens asked Tidwell and Green why this was included and what it was meant to allow, but neither responded.

While she may not have realized it at the time, the removal of the ban, along with her oddly warm welcome of the Governor's own state police force, Troop Nola, has placed the entire city in danger as the 2025 Trump administration continues to remove protection for civil rights and liberties as well as oversight for potential abuse of NSA surveillance

Louisiana State Police (LSP) Troop Nola, are now permanently established in the city and cannot be regulated by city policy and regulations. This means that they can also not be regulated by the same city ordinance that compelled the NOPD to pause their use of the controversial surveillance and real time tracking notifications.

As of yesterday, the Justice Department decided to stop investigating civil rights accusations previously made against LSP, while Louisiana Gov. Jeff Landry and his long time friend Attorney General Liz Murrill, were reported to have celebrated the decision.

Both locally and during work travel through the southeastern US, I'm noticing a lot more agricultural fields being left fallow/abandoned. Usually by this point in the season fields would at least be cleared and planted, but many have been left un-plowed.

I'm also seeing a shift in crops being grown. Definently a lot more fields are growing hay than usual.

Farmers trying to respond to tariffs? Farmers opting to not lease lands leading to more empty fields?

Controlling the narrative. This is an important step for the success of this administration, and something a few of us have been saying would happen for years now. If they control the narrative, they can keep people in the dark.

The government looking to effectively silence NPR, PBS, CBS, NBC, MSNBC, AP, and others, as well as Zuckerberg's pushing of pro-Trump content on Facebook, and then add Musk's personal vendetta (and partial success) at getting Reddit to comply with his demands for takedowns of not just posts but banning users for even liking certain content, this all falls in line with the authoritarian playbook.

Stay frosty, people. We aren't 3 months into this administration, and we're 2 days away from the administration likely inciting the Insurrection Act on April 20th. Things are escalating fast.

I don't even know what else to include. This administration speaks for itself.

I want to reiterate that now is past the time to start being paranoid about what you say, where you say it, and to whom you say things to. There is zero doubt in my mind that those with a grudge against you may drop your name in a tip line for those who, in their eyes, "hate America" or are "aiding and abetting terrorists", and end up with you being bagged.

https://lemmy.world/post/28260599

I apologize in advance to the Mod that this is not so much a news article, but coming from a military background, I firmly believe that this is 'intel' that needs repeating loudly. I hope you understand.

Folks, we all know where things are headed in the United States. The tactics being used by ICE, the goalposts being moved for who the targets are, and the recent news that even "homegrown" people are going to be included soon on the planes to foreign supermax prisons where there is no escape from, this country is absolutely resembling pre-WWII Germany. People being taken off the street by masked individuals in unmarked vehicles and without any judicial hearing or oversight, being shipped off to a prison in a country they've never even been to, this is a 1:1 buildup of rounding up the "undesirables" in Germany. We know the fate of those when it happened back then, and make no mistake; the people who are sent there, even if they are US citizens (taken "by mistake" or not), they're not coming back. They will not live long enough to serve out any prison term.

Which, leads me to the cause of this post: Protecting yourself and your family. Do not discuss, under any circumstances, Trump, MAGA, politics, or related news events with strangers, or to anyone who voted for MAGA. This even includes spouses (need I remind people about the MAGA supporter whose wife was deported, and felt no regret about his vote and said he would do it again).

If you are pressed into a corner for an opinion, play dumb. Say that you have so much going on with your own personal life (work, hobbies, sports, family, etc) that you can't really follow what is happening anywhere else. The last thing you want to do is paint yourself as a potential political dissident; as someone who does not 'toe the line' when it comes to Trump's policies and what is happening. There is little doubt that in the coming months, there will be a 'tipline' opened for people to report those who do not fall in line with the new rules.

In the military, we have something called "OPSEC"; Operations Security. You may recall hearing such saying as "loose lips sink ships", and the literal meaning of that was to tell sailors that when in port, that when they go to the nearest bar and start discussing things (even amongst themselves) like where they came from, where they're going, and what they're carrying on board, they say things that can be overheard by adversaries who can take bits of info from each individual conversation and put together the big picture. Right now, this is how you need to operate. You need to go 'grey man', in a sense. Political bumper sticker on your car? Get rid of it. Still have a Harris flag hanging in your yard, or some other flag that is seen as 'potentially dissident' by MAGA? Take it down. Social media profiles like Facebook? Though the info has likely already been taken for analyzing, I still recommend scrubbing it entirely, even for things that are years old from Trump's first term in office. Any keychains, clothing, or other identifiable markers that allow someone to place you as someone who, even loosely, "hates America" (since that will be the bar for who gets deported), you need to hide them away.

We're not *at *a turning point in history, friends. We went around that bend months ago. We are firmly at the part where you need to be more cautious than you've ever been, to the point of not just paranoia, but I would say damn near **extreme **paranoia.

Here is what you can do to further protect yourself:

-If your phone still uses SMS, either get a phone and carrier that uses RCS. SMS is not encrypted, and can be intercepted and easily read.

-Even better, use a form of encrypted communication that is not stored on any server and can be set to be automatically deleted after a set time (like Signal, only don't invite people you don't want in the conversation).

-Cell phone calls are not recommended. Use Signal for voice calls.

-If you prep with close ones using Baofeng or other clear-comm radios, consider getting licensed for using encrypted voice radios known as DMRs.

-Look into other methods of encrypted communication as well, like Meshtastic.

-VPN. Get one. Worth it.

-If you protest, take care to hide your identity. Mask up, do not wear clothing that you've worn in any social media posts, do not take your own vehicle there, pay cash for public transit. For months, Federal agents have been gathering intel (to include photographic and video intel) on protesters.

-If you go to protests, or to any meetings with any similarly like-minded individuals to discuss anything in person, leave your phone behind. Same with smart watches. If you have a car with "smart" features (anything with satellite communications or cell data communications), pull the SIM card/satellite antenna cable, or yank the fuse to kill power to that functionality if you can. Might even be worth considering getting a 'dumb' vehicle. If you get a burner phone, pay cash only for it, at a smaller place that isn't likely to keep video surveillance footage for long. Try to get one with a removeable battery. Do not insert the battery or turn the phone on while at, or driving to/from home. Look into de-Googling an older Android phone to allow you to completely shut off the cell antenna, and you can use that for Meshtastic communications, or going on wireless hotspots (but only as long as you can randomize or change your phone's MAC address, and use a VPN).

In short, think of now as a time of war, and treat your communications, travels, and life accordingly. What you share, with whom you share it, where you share it. You make a mistake, it could end up with you being bagged and sent to a death camp.

Stay safe.

Further reading: https://www.thoughtco.com/who-supported-hitler-and-why-1221371 https://www.bbc.co.uk/bitesize/guides/z3bp82p/revision/6 https://www.tpr.org/podcast/the-source/2024-11-01/the-rise-of-adolf-hitler-and-the-parallels-with-u-s-politics-today

JFC. No further commentary needed, I suppose.

With the likelihood of the Insurrection Act being implemented in less than a week, the military no longer looking to root out Nazis or other extremists is very concerning. FTA:

"...in February, the DoD issued a memo halting a major counter-extremism initiative rooting out white nationalists and far-right influences among servicemen, citing that it was not in line with Donald Trump’s executive orders. Since, the efficacy of rooting out the far right within the ranks remains unclear."

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.world/post/27995219

Now we're mixing the leadership of law enforcement and military.

In other news, armed minorities are harder to suppress.

For me, my job has been hybrid for 20 years. So, WFH some, and in the office some. We were told on Thursday, March 12th to prepare to WFH full time for the next 2 weeks. Little did I know that Sunday, March 15th would be the last time I would be leaving my house for months, at least not in any meaningful way.

The evening of Monday, March 16th, the Governor of my state issued a state wide lockdown of non-essential business, to go into effect at 5 PM Tuesday the 17th. I can’t recall what the timeline was for how long that was supposed to last, but it ended up being almost 2 months before business like restaurants had figured out how to be open for takeout only. It was almost a full year in my town before things were back to the “new normal”.

We’re still full time WFH, and there’s no going back to the office for me. They sold the building, so there’s no where to go.

Life has never fully gone back to the way it was prior to that, and it probably never will. That’s a scar that will just never heal.

On a weird personal note, I was notified on March 18th, 2020 that my divorce from my toxic ex wife was finalized. Didn’t get to celebrate for like 6 months lol.

This shit has surpassed ridiculous. I feel like the writers of Spaceballs, and Idiocracy, are somehow making things happen.

“One senior Trump administration official says the White House’s overarching approach on these matters is to, quite simply, “move fast” — both because they expect courts to try to quickly order them to stop, and if a judge does so, moving quickly allows Team Trump to execute certain actions before the law and oversight can catch up to them.”

“Another close Trump adviser simply says that the president’s ultimate leverage against certain judges who try to stand in the way of his agenda is that the judiciary does not command an army, while the president of the United States does. “Are they going to come and arrest him?” the adviser asked, rhetorically.”